Lead Policy Adviser

Job summary

We’re responsible for Land Transaction Tax, Landfill Disposals Tax and the introduction of the Visitor Levy in Wales. Our work raises revenue to support public services, like the NHS and schools, in communities across Wales. But that’s not all, we're also involved with and support future tax design for Wales.

Join a place with purpose
You’ll join a team of 100+ talented people from across 14 different professions. Our culture is best described as innovative, collaborative and kind. By working together, we’ll deliver a fair tax system for Wales.

Our people
You’ll be working with people from a wide range of backgrounds and experience. From Operations, Policy, Digital and Data, HR, Communications to Finance – there’s a place for you in our friendly team.

You’ll be our greatest asset

You’ll be joining an inclusive organisation and be part of a team where you can thrive, be rewarded and heard.

We’re recognised as one of the top organisations for people engagement in the Civil Service People Survey. Inclusion and fairness are one of our strongest areas, as well as pay and benefits – our People Survey results say it all!

We’re also recognised for being innovative and a digital, ‘cloud-based’ organisation that supports hybrid and flexible working enabling a great work-life balance.

More about working for us, our roles and our Corporate Plan 2025 - 2028 .

Job description

Reporting directly to the Head of Strategy & Policy, the Lead Policy Adviser will play a key leadership role in continuing to develop the devolved tax policy agenda, at an exciting time for the WRA as it moves from its start-up years to becoming a more mature organisation, growing and taking on new areas of work.

The Strategy and Policy team is responsible for WRA corporate strategy, operational policy development, and guidance on service delivery and the application of devolved taxes. It also provides advice and support on complex tax risks, and works in partnership with the Welsh Treasury on the strategic and administrative design of the system of devolved taxes in Wales. Policy developed by the team supports the efficient, fair and effective delivery of our services for taxpayers and their agents, and also establishes lawful and proportionate compliance, litigation and enforcement strategies based on WRA’s civil and criminal enforcement powers. The team is broadly organised between developing policy for existing devolved taxes, and future focussed tax design and strategy, although flexibility and cross-team working is strongly encouraged to build capability across the whole team.

You will provide leadership and guidance for colleagues responsible for policy development on the WRA’s existing taxes. This role, in particular, will act as the tax policy lead for Land Transaction Tax, as well as leading and cooridnating work across our collection and management powers. The Lead Policy Advisor will become an expert in LTT Policy work, spanning operational policy development as well as legislative development in collaboration with Welsh treasury. They will also work closely with Senior Policy Advisors working across Landfill Disposals Tax, National Registration and Visitor Levy, creating a cross-cutting and joint effort on collection and management policy areas.

You will encourage and role model collaboration to develop and implement policy smoothly into operations, while also developing policy partnerships and working with stakeholders on future developments to devolved taxes. The Lead Policy Advisor will also help coordinate WRA’s approach to Reviews, including training others and ensuring tax reviews are dealt with consistently and to a high standard.

You will be a great team player, possess good analytical skills and enjoy working with others to find innovative solutions to complex problems. You will also need to develop a detailed understanding of the devolved tax landscape in Wales and build tax technical knowledge to confidently advise and work closely with partners across government to shape the design of devolved taxes so that policy intent and service delivery are effectively aligned.

You will play a key role in providing policy input to service teams who design and implement the WRA’s core services, ensuring the end-to-end customer journey is seamlessly aligned with the both the needs of the taxpayer and the tax rules.

To be successful in the role, you will need to enjoy engaging with a diverse network of stakeholders and need to be able to communicate both high-level strategy and detailed technical matters clearly and simply to a range of audiences.

The work of the Strategy & Policy team varies according to emerging issues and trends, delivery of WRA priorities and wider Welsh Government strategy for devolved taxes in Wales. We are looking for an individual who can work flexibly and collaboratively to resolve uncertainty, and to develop solutions to challenging issues.

You will be an ambassador for the WRA externally, representing the organisation, our purpose, and the ‘Welsh way of doing tax’.

“This is an exciting opportunity to join the WRA’s Strategy and Policy team, and contribute to WRA’s way of doing tax, called “Our Approach”.

As Lead Policy Advisor your role will have reach across Wales. You’ll play a key part in ensuring that current policy integrity is upheld, whilst having an eye on the future and contributing to new tax policy developments, ensuring they are fit for purpose. Working collaboratively with teams across the WRA, and much wider too, you’ll be in a varied role where one day you’ll be providing sound advice to teams and shaping WRA’s position on tax matters, and the next you’ll be engaging with Welsh Government on future tax developments.”

Indee Dehal, Head of Strategy & Policy

Person specification

Leadership

• Be an inspirational and development-focused leader to policy team members, with line management responsibility for 1 x HEO, which may grow in the future. Support colleagues in the wider team with the design and implementation of effective policy.
• Build policy capability and expertise across the team on WRA’s powers, encouraging a culture of innovation that is attuned to our emerging context.
• Build tax capability on Land Transaction Tax across the WRA and wider, working closely with Welsh Treasury on tax developments.

Operational policy development

• Provide high quality and timely advice on the practical application of tax legislation to resolve uncertainty and ensure that decisions are made and communicated in a way that is sound, clear and lawful.
• Identify and address issues arising from implementation of tax policy, leading on changes to our existing approach where necessary.
• Lead on the development and evaluation of WRA operational policies – notably the use of powers under the Tax Collection and Management (Wales) Act 2016.
• Enhance and embed our approach to evidence-based impact assessments and policy evaluation, building capability across the team to review and refine policy decisions.

Strategic policy development

• Lead the WRA’s work on LTT and TCMA policy development, working closely with colleagues from across the organisation and external stakeholders to review, update and shape the future of the tax.
• Provide WRA advice to and collaborate with Welsh Treasury colleagues on significant policy changes to devolved taxes, UK taxes or the wider UK legislative landscape.
• Develop operational strategies such as our approach to debt management and tax avoidance, to support the effective delivery of devolved taxes, working across the organisation to enable delivery of our corporate plan objectives.

Tax integrity

• Be responsible for ensuring tax policy is implemented through our end-to-end services and operational tax decision-making in a way that is consistent with the intentions of the legislation and the expectations of Ministers.
• Develop evidence-based policy, using data, customer insight and analysis to identify and address issues early, resolving complexity to ensure that devolved taxes operate as intended.
• Act as lead WRA Review Officer, overseeing our approach to managing reviews of WRA decisions where challenged by taxpayers, supporting colleagues across the department to develop tax and technical capability in this area.

Relationship building

• Develop strategic partnerships, as well as explore and influence new working models with organisations such as Welsh Treasury, Local Authorities, HMRC, VOA, HM Land Registry, Revenue Scotland and others. You will also build strong relationships with external stakeholders including representative bodies and the tax profession.

Candidate information sessions

If this seems like a role you’d be interested in, join us for our virtual Candidate Information Sessions. You’ll meet the Line Manager, get an overview of the role as well a feeling for what it’s like to work at the WRA. We’ll also talk through our benefits and provide helpful tips for your application with us. Please register for one of the sessions below:

Register here for 10 November 12.45pm - 13.15pm: https://PrifGynghoryddPolisi.eventbrite.co.uk

Register here for 10 November at 16.00pm - 16.30pm: https://PrifGynghoryddPolisi4pm.eventbrite.co.uk

We recommend you review the job description (or candidate pack) under the 'attachments' section before completing your application.

Languages

We’ve undertaken an objective assessment of the Welsh language skills needed to undertake the duties of this role. For this role:
Welsh language skills - Welsh skills are not essential. This means that you do not need Welsh language skills to undertake this role and these skills won’t be assessed during the recruitment process. However, we actively encourage all staff to learn, or improve their Welsh language skills and offer a range of opportunities to suit everyone.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £61,098, Welsh Revenue Authority contributes £17,700 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

What we offer

• 31 days annual leave + Bank holidays, and 2 Privilege days
• Flexible and hybrid working
• Generous employer pension schemes with a contribution of up to 28.97%
• Tusker car scheme
• Vivup Cycle2Work and salary advances for season Travel Tickets
• Lifestyle Benefits offering discounts on shopping, restaurants and entertainment
• Wellbeing hour each week
• Access to subsidised sports groups
• Generous family-friendly leave policies
• Free Welsh language courses and time off to learn
• Access to a range of staff diversity networks
• Free counselling and support service via our Vivup Employee Assistance Programme and Your Care Health platform
• A thriving culture that’s described as innovative, collaborative and kind.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

We’ll always be clear about how we assess your application at each stage of the process. This will usually include:

• Assessment of your Application Form and CV against the relevant Success Criteria
• A panel interview (if you’re successful at the initial sift stage) Interviews will take place in person.
• If any additional assessments are needed for this role, such as a test or presentation at interview, we’ll let you know in advance.
• Should a large number of applications be received, an initial sift will be conducted using the lead behaviour, Seeing the bigger picture.

We’re proud to be a Disability Confident Leader so we’ll ask you if you need any adjustments at each stage of the recruitment process. So that we can support you in a way that works for you, we’ll offer a pre-interview accessibility chat to anyone that declares a disability, or needs any adjustments. This will take place with someone who is independent of the recruitment process and you won’t be placed at any disadvantage as a result of needing adjustments.

A reserve list may be held for this role for applicants that have scored above the appointable threshold at interview. This means that if a similar vacancy becomes available in the next 12 months we may contact you to offer you the role.

Success criteria

Behaviours

Criteria

Assessed in personal statement and CV

Assessed during interview or assessment

Seeing the big picture

• Ensure plans and activities in your area of work reflect wider strategic priorities and communicate effectively with senior leaders to influence future strategies.

• Bring together views, perspectives and diverse needs of stakeholders to gain a broader understanding of the issues surrounding policies and activities.

Yes

Yes

Communicating and Influencing

• Communicate with others in a clear,honest and enthusiastic way in order to build trust.

• Explain complex issues in a way that is easy to understand.

Yes

Yes

Making effective decisions

· Present reasonable conclusions from a wide range of complex and sometimes incomplete evidence.

· Make decisions confidently even when details are unclear or if they prove to be unpopular.

Yes

Yes

Strengths

Criteria

Assessed in personal statement and CV

Assessed during interview or assessment

Problem solver

You take a positive approach to tackling problems and find ways to identify suitable solutions.

No

Yes

Influencer

You influence others, you articulate the rationale to gain their agreement.

No

Yes

Learner

You are inquisitive, you seek out new information and look for new ways to develop yourself.

No

Yes

Experience

Criteria

Assessed in personal statement and CV

Assessed during interview or assessment

Experience of developing or working with complex tax legislation.

Yes

Yes

We recommend you review the job description (or candidate pack) under the 'attachments' section before completing your application.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) criminal record check.People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : WRA Recruitment Team
• Email : Recruitment@wra.gov.wales
• Telephone : 03000254000

Recruitment team

• Email : Recruitment@wra.gov.wales

Further information

The law requires that selection for appointment to the Civil Service is on merit on the basis of fair and open competition. See the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles where this is set out.
If you feel your application has not been treated in line with the recruitment principles, and you wish to complain, you should contact the Head of HR.
Email: hr@wra.gov.wales
If you’re not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Civil Service Commission.

Attachments

Job description - Lead Policy Adviser - Final Opens in new window (pdf, 305kB)Disgrifiad swydd Prif Gynghorydd Polisi - Final Opens in new window (pdf, 315kB)